Mindfulness and Existential Therapy

Abstract

Mindfulness is an experiential practice in the development of moment-tomoment awareness of our physical, cognitive and affective responses to internal and external stimuli. The ease with which mindfulness can be used at this most basic level has contributed to its increasingly widespread application in a variety of therapeutic modalities as a way of enhancing the healing process. Mindfulness however is not just a technique. It is a foundational Buddhist practice and is informed by the tenets of Buddhist philosophy concerning impermanence, the nature of the ‘self’ and interconnectedness. The potential contribution of mindfulness practice is therefore farreaching. This provided it is not used as just another therapeutic tool, or ‘another fad’ to quote a recent New York Times article in which they described mindfulness as ‘perhaps the most popular new psychotherapy technique of the past decade’ (Carey, 2008). In this article I chart the ascent of mindfulness in the field of cognitive therapy, as it is through cognitive therapy that its clinical application has been popularised in the U.K. I then explore mindfulness in the context of the four Buddhist Noble Truths as the practice of Mindfulness is regarded as essential in one’s experiential confrontation with these fundamental aspects of human existence. It is in this context that the congruity of Mindfulness with Existential thought becomes most apparent. My purpose in writing this article is to argue that in comparison to Cognitive Therapy and Psychoanalysis the two modalities where Mindfulness has been most widely adopted and adapted, it is Existential Therapy that has the most in common with it. Mindfulness could deepen and enrich the process of exploration of the client’s experience which is the focus of Existential Therapy, adding a much needed experiential dimension. In addition, because of it congruence with Existential Therapy, it is there that Mindfulness could yield its fullest therapeutic benefits, not just as vehicle of discrete change, but as a practice conducive to the farreaching existential re-evaluation Existential Therapy is about.